Learning how to consider the perceptions of readers and viewers, their cultural sensitivities and diversity in the age of Global media.©
Some 20 years ago when I was in charge of the Middle East area on the Independent News Desk, we invited three Arab ambassadors for lunch. They were hostile to me personally, accusing me of pro-Israel and anti-Arab bias. Tow days hours later, the Israeli ambassador came for lunch. He too, accused me of being anti-Israel and pro-Arab. When I asked him to specify his compliant, strangely, he named the very two news reports and one picture caption that were cited by Arab ambassadors as a proof of my bias.
The incident made me aware that no matter how much you try to be neutral when reporting a conflict or a story that involves two or more parties in conflict, you will still be perceived as biased by all of them, especially if you are reporting foreign news.
This was an eye-opener for me and my colleagues, which later became useful with the spread of the internet and the globalisation of news: We were reporting for British readers thinking as British reporters and British editors and seeing the events from a British neutral stand in accordance with British traditions. None of the parties that objected was British, but they had their own perceptions, their own prejudices, their emotional baggage and their own narratives, regardless how absurd it might seem to us.
In short they had their own cultural issues that made it impossible for us to fully comprehend how two parties who have been at each others’ throat for half a century unite in condemning the same coverage because it was a third narrative, not the Arab or the Israeli narrative.
Twenty years later, it seems, I am still learning the lesson of no matter how much you are trying to be neutral and even handed, some one will always throw a brick at your window for the very reasons you have tried to avoid this brick.
You try to display as many goods as your window display can fit – and here I mean the space allocated to your story; but passers by find one or more of those goods offending his/her sensibilities.
This week for example, I was commissioned by the Arabic paper Asharq al-Aawsat to write a column to coincide with 40th anniversary of the six-day war. Since I have already written an editorial for my paper in English, I produced an Arabic version of it, changing the metaphors and reference to fit what I thought Arabic viewers might comprehend. I kept the basic substance witch blaming al parties, Colonel Nasser and the Arabs for starting the conflict and refusing to accept Israel and the Israelis for wasting their victory by not approaching the Palestinians directly and the Palestinians for letting Arab dictators exploit their tragedy and resorting to violence which lost them world sympathy and put them on the wrong side of international law for three decades.
I discovered what you write as a British columnist for British readers could be perceived in totally different light by non-British readers, who bring up issues you never imagine in your wildest dreams.
Although I am ethnically not Arab (my family is from Balkan and East Europe) and never worked in an Arab news room; still readers looked at my name and, without bothering to check, assumed I must be Arabic and therefore they didn’t tolerate some one they decided he was ' one of them' c to be neutral or even handed in dispensing the blame.
If those who sent their hate email to me, bothered to look me up in reference books or a reference web-site, they would realise they are wrong. But it the ideological culture shaped by years of conflict and ideological media to see the world in black and white terms. Those active readers were more comfortable to stick to their firm belief and their classification of writers, resisting the idea of research that makes them uncomfortable or in case they might discover what could undermine the foundation of their belief system.
These experiences indicate that one has to take into account the culture and traditions of the region in which the conflict is going on. Now-days the media is global and, our readership is diverse no longer exclusively British but world wide and not of British or Anglo-Saxon culture but of many cultures.
It is also important that we are sensitive to many diversities, not just to avoid a brick at your window in the shape of a hate mail by angry readers, or protesting diplomats and officials but this awareness also helps us to further understand the grievances and strong emotions associated with certain issues that we cover.
Last Friday, one of the BBC most experienced journalist, the diplomatic editor Bridgette Kendall left her self open to criticism by the inappropriate the use of one word , when she did the package of the kidnapped BBC man Alan Johnston in Gaza, when his kidnappers released a video tape in which he said what no self respecting journalist would say in ordinary circumstances as he condemned Britain involvement in the Islamic world claiming that Britain was responsible for the misery of the Palestinians. Miss Kendall said he was ‘asked’ by his captors to make this speech. The appropriate verb should have been forced, told or ordered, since ‘asked’ indicates he had a choice. Just this one word has serious implications. Either the BBC, including Mr Johnston, share this view of Britain; or, worse, Miss Kendall knew the fact that he was ‘ asked’ and agreed rather than forced which is the expected in this situation.
When reporting diversity we must always realise that such sensitivities go to many issues in our daily life. Feminist issues are usually engulfed with such diversity and conflicting emotions. Take an issue like considering house wives and mothers work as a productive job should be paid for by the state. It can be interpreted in two ways. Giving women the right to chose whether to be full time mothers or not; or, as the lefties fall into this trap, be criticised as against the idea of women working and chaining them to the kitchen sink.
In this case, if I were an editor, I would commission a woman journalist to do the first case, getting mothers and top psychologists telling us why it is beneficial for society to pay a mother a decent wage to become a full time mother. And get a man to do a report on successful career women in the city who are also happily married. I give the reader the choice here to decide.
Or the issue of abortion which has a complex web of dimensions. The concept of a catholic Bishop is different from that of a doctor or a nurse who saw the foetus still moving after the operation. And certainly different from that of a woman who had the experience and in turn this woman will examine the issue of abortion in different light altogether if we knew that when her mother was pregnant with her the mother was advised to abort on a medical grounds to avoid a deformed child; yet the child lived to be a bright successful academic who is giving us her story in the paper.
This will also raise the question: Should diverse or conflicting issues be reported by people who are too close to the issue?
Ie only black Africans can report Africa? Muslim report Muslim issues and only women can report on issues like abortion?
There are social, cultural and local pressures that are put on local journalists,
Which take a great many years of experience to understand?
On one hand it might be hard for us in the west to understand local issues in foreign land. But on the other a journalist should not become part of the story and a local journalist close association with the event might not be in the best interest of the readers.
I am an old-fashioned editor who prefer not to employ a native reporter as a foreign correspondent for traditional reasons that they should distance themselves from the event and resist local pressure etc.
But what can you do when it is physically impossible to send some one from Britain, like in Iraq now or in Gaza where it is too dangerous to send reporters from UK?
Take situation like in Lebanon in 1980s when we first discovered that it is no longer a gentleman's war; rules which guided combatants were no longer applicable, the visible sign ‘ press’ around your neck which was your free pass to safety like the big read cross on your vehicle became invalid, in fact it has made you a target.
In this case, you have to look at the bigger picture of a whole news bulletin and a whole page in the paper. Each story by itself might not be balanced, but the general out put coverage of the event will be.
It is important for us as journalists to work as a team and stick to facts.
Some of the old editors on the Telegraph desk taught me some phrases 40 years ago, like: If in doubt, cut it out; and a story without a source is a source for trouble.
It is important that we should work as a team not just among same news organisation reporters in the region and on the desk in London, but with other correspondents in the field.
There are some big names who operate in a shameful way; they get over excited and let their imagination get the better of them ( especially with anti-Americanism encouraged by the left and in a region like the Middle East which guarantees their safety), but they but their fellow journalists who are less excitable in grave danger.
One way is to be non-controversial. I don't mean coward, but just report facts. Perhaps you can show indirect sympathy with the underdog as long as you report facts (The FT reporter Harvey Morris once told the story of two families, Jewish who emigrated from Iran 20 years ago, and Palestinian neighbours whose family lived in the village for 300 years). You can interview the mother of a victim killed by Israeli shell etc.
Let another correspondent do the Israeli victim’s side of the story. Obviously it is better if it is one story under a joint by-line but if it will put your reporter in Gaza at risk, then they should be two separate stories.
In this world of diversity and conflict, the job job of London desk editor is cut out for him /her as he must balance the reports from the field using other input from experts and from other correspondents. That how we covered the two Iraq wars, with huge pressure from the military to hide facts, or pool the story selecting one reporter to do it.
His/ her copy might be irrelevant to your readers but you have no choice. It is the editor in London who will try to balance it.
I remember during the 1st Gulf war the MOD pooled a report and I found the only copy in front of me was from a tabloid journalist who interviewed female British soldiers asking them whether they brought their vibrators with them and enough batteries to operate them and other details about their sex life, I had to do a great deal of modifications to use such copy in a broadsheet paper read by middle class families. .
The last Iraq war we had to overcome the issue if embedded reporters being too close to the military losing this essential distance need cast a critical review. Again we tried to balance it from other reporters in the region, ex-military as guest commentators and analysts in London.
The embedded journalists phenomenon forced us to cover the story from different angles from different parts, but also experts in London where great in balancing it with other views. But careful not to fall in the trap the BBC set for itself, getting carried away, because this did backfire.
At the same time we have to be careful not to swallow what politicians and officials are trying to spin just because it looks morally or ethically correct or seems right, or fits with our view of the world.
Take the current green and ecology hysteria sweeping Britain about global warming. Many journalists are falling into the trap of taking sides. Some, understandably, convinced themselves that bay taking the side of mother earth, or fighting global warming or doing your share to reduce carbon emission, it would be ok, and you are with the right cause. Well this is wrong actually. Because politicians were quick to seize the opportunity and cynically seeing being green as a vote winner.
And who helped them to exploit the emotions of the voters?
We journalists by getting carried away with this hysteria.
In fact politicians whether national or local started slamming taxes on us in the name protecting the environment and reducing carbon emission. Yet very few if any, have actually questioned the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown whether his new carbon-tax will actually go to to help the environment. Well it won't because the treasury refused to conform it as they didn't want to set a precedent of spending the revenue on the purpose for which they claim taxes have been collected.
In fact we have some of our civil liberties eroded and our privacy invaded with local authorities spying on us in the name of how much rubbish we recycle or how energy efficient our homes are.
Journalists, unfortunately, are unwittingly helping the politicians attacking our civil liberties and changing our way of life and putting their hands in our pockets, by not questioning them. Journalists might afraid of being environmentally incorrect the same way they are accused of being politically incorrect, so they don't challenge the premise and claptrap put forward by politicians.
It is not just conflicts that present us with a challenge of reporting diverse issues and reporting fairly, accurately and taking social and cultural sensitivities into account, but also issues what might not appear of a conflict or even popular issues like global warming. We must do our job as neutral, questioning, distrusting of politicians, even if we risk being unpopular or fall out of favour.
* Adel Darwish: veteran Fleet Street Reporter with 38 years experience covering national and international news.
© Copyrights Adel Darwish 2007. Not to be used reprinted in part or in full without prior permission from Adel Darwish.
a_d@mideastnews.com